Manifesto: where Keila comes from and what we refuse

Where the name comes from

Keila comes from kehila, community. Not community as a slogan. The one that already exists: the people sharing addresses in WhatsApp groups, who know the owner’s cousin and know a restaurant changed its supervision two months ago.

That knowledge is valuable. It is also scattered, difficult to verify, and disappears as the conversation scrolls past. Keila tries to keep what is good about it, people helping each other, and add what is missing: a source, a date and a scope.

Why it is free

A free Jewish app.
Yes, we know.

Keila’s business will come from offers for restaurant owners: better ways to present their listing, photos and menu. What they will never be able to buy is the line explaining the source of their kosher status. That line is not for sale. What we offer restaurant owners is public.

What we refuse.

Charging to be “certified”.

Refused

Keila does not certify anything. Certification comes from a body: the Beth Din of Paris, the Lubavitch rabbinate and others. We show what we found and where it came from: documented certification, a restaurant’s own declaration, or a simple directory mention. Three different things, shown as three different things.

Mixing ratings.

Refused

A Google rating and a Keila review do not measure the same thing. Until an address has five published Keila reviews, we show its external rating with the source, number of reviews and date. No magic average combining the two.

Relaxing your requirements for you.

Refused

If you tell us you only eat under a particular supervisory body, we will not “helpfully” put a restaurant that merely declares itself kosher at the top of your list. Your requirements remain yours. Keila never widens them automatically.

Making the unknown sound like good news.

Refused

If we do not know, we say we do not know. Evidence marked as suspended never produces a positive result. The details are on the page Our method.

Why Paris first

275

addresses known to us, kosher, vegan and vegetarian: 196 in 17 Paris districts, 79 elsewhere in Île-de-France, mostly just beyond the ring road.

Because this is where we eat, get the address wrong and end up calling a cousin. And because an honest catalogue is built street by street. It should help residents just as much as tourists arriving in Paris.

Paris is the starting point for the beta. The vision is international: gradually expand restaurant coverage to other cities and countries while keeping the same standards for sources. At launch, the app will follow the user’s language.

What we still need to prove

Let us be direct. The app is not on the App Store yet. The catalogue has gaps. Of these 275 addresses, 119 have documented certification that is current in our data. The others rely on a restaurant declaration or a directory, and their listing says so. Keila reviews start from zero.

We need to prove an app can be useful without pretending to know more than it does. That you can open Keila on a Thursday evening, find somewhere for dinner and know exactly why it meets your requirements.

If we get an address wrong, tell us. Each listing has a “Report an error” button, and we read thomas@keila.app . We start in Paris, then expand coverage.